WHARTON SEMINARS FOR BUSINESS JOURNALISTS ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR INTERNATIONAL FELLOWSHIP

WHEN: Program takes place October 10-13, deadline for applications varies, see background information

CONTACT: To apply go to www.wharton.upenn.edu/journalists

BACKGROUND: The Wharton Seminars for Business Journalists are dedicated to helping journalists gain a better understanding of key business and economic issues via intensive lectures conducted by senior Wharton School faculty.  Our Donald T. Sheehan International Fellowship is offered to help international or internationally-focused journalists who wish to attend the Wharton Seminars for Business Journalists.  The Fellowship provides for tuition, most meals and all program materials but not travel or lodging.   The program takes place on the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia, PA, October 10-13, 2010.  Please note:

1)         For the Sheehan Fellowship, deadline is Sept. 1, 2010. Note “Sheehan Fellowship” in the “current responsibilities” field of on the application page here: http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/media_room/journalists/application.html

2)         For general applications, the deadline is Oct. 1, 2010

3)         Additional information:

•           Session Dates: Sunday-Wednesday, October 10-13, 2010

•           Fee [for those not receiving financial assistance]: The cost of the program is $1995.00 and includes tuition, materials, and most meals.  Final deadline date for all applications and payment is October 1, 2010.

•           Location: Classes will convene at the Wharton School’s state-of-the-art facility, Jon M. Huntsman Hall.

•           Accommodations: If registered by September 1, 2010, participants may reserve rooms at the Hilton Inn at Penn.

•           Program Agenda: Scheduled sessions and faculty are available here: http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/media_room/journalists/courses.html

When asked why he was so good, hockey icon Wayne Gretzky replied:
“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

As Leo Gerard, President of the Steel Worker’s Union, and Michael Peck of Gamesa, said in a recent editorial, “The world is skating toward multiple clean sources of energy in a carbon-free future.  The question is whether the U.S. has the political will to become a leader in the largest industry of this century, or whether it is willing to accept the economic and climatic consequences of failing to act.”

Pennsylvania has the will.  The Pew Charitable Trust rates Pennsylvania amongst the top three states in the nation that have capitalized on revitalizing their economy through projects that:

• Provide alternatives to carbon-based energy sources;
• Conserve the use of energy and all natural resources; and
• Reduce pollution (including GHG emissions) and repurposes waste.

But transformation takes time and money.  Since central Pennsylvania has faced the same economic hardships that have affected much of rural America, a recent press tour sponsored by Pennsylvania’s Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED), provided key insights into how Pennsylvania is meeting these challenges.

THE GREEN ECONOMY Website  has this months articles on:

Pennsylvania’s Green Economy

and we present here the link:

http://www.thegreeneconomy.com/pennsylvanias-green-economy/

from: Citizens For Affordable Energy

The following quite amazed us and we had to do a little research:

With the help of Google we found: “THE CHARLATAN MAGAZINE IS THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE COMPLEMENT OF THE CHARLATAN, CARLETON UNIVERSITY’S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER.”

Joseph-Beth Booksellers is an independent bookseller with stores in five major US cities: Lexington, Kentucky; Cincinnati, Ohio; Cleveland, Ohio; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Charlotte, North Carolina and as well The Village At Spotsylvania Towne Centre, Spotsylvania, Virginia. Then looking up the area phone code 704 – this points at Charlotte, North Carolina. Ain’t this amazing? Why then Carleton University – or are there more then one Carleton University that compete for the charlatan?

======================

Citizens for Affordable Energy

919 Milam, Suite 2070
Houston, TX
77002
US

 http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/e…

BP disaster’s lesson for government regulators.

By KENNETH ROGOFF, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — As the damaged BP oil well continues to spew millions of gallons of crude from the depths of the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, the immediate challenge is how to mitigate an ever-magnifying environmental catastrophe. One can only hope that the spill will be contained soon, and that the ever-darkening worst-case scenarios will not materialize.

The disaster, however, poses a much deeper challenge to how modern societies deal with regulating complex technologies. The accelerating speed of innovation seems to be outstripping government regulators’ capacity to deal with risks, much less anticipate them.

The parallels between the oil spill and the recent financial crisis are all too painful: The promise of innovation, unfathomable complexity, and lack of transparency (scientists estimate that we know only a very small fraction of what goes on at the oceans’ depths.) Wealthy and politically powerful lobbies put enormous pressure on even the most robust governance structures. It is a huge embarrassment for U.S. President Barack Obama that he proposed to expand offshore oil drilling greatly just before the BP catastrophe struck.

The oil technology story, like the one for exotic financial instruments, was very compelling and seductive. Oil executives bragged that they could drill a couple of kilometers down, then a kilometer across and hit their target within a few meters. Suddenly, instead of a world of “peak oil” with ever-depleting resources, technology offered the promise of extending supplies for another generation.

Western officials were also swayed by concerns about the stability of supplies in the Middle East, which accounts for a large proportion of the world’s proven reserves. Some developing countries, most notably Brazil, have discovered huge potential offshore riches.

Now all bets are off. In the United States, offshore drilling seems set to go the way of nuclear power, with new projects being shelved for decades. And, as is often the case, a crisis in one country may go global, with many other countries radically scaling back off-shore and out-of-bounds projects. Will Brazil really risk its spectacular coastline for oil, now that everyone has been reminded of what can happen? What about Nigeria, where other risks are amplified by civil strife?

Oil experts argue that offshore drilling never had the potential to amount to more than a small share of global supply. But there now will be greater concerns about deep drilling in any sensitive environment. And the problem is not just with oil. The big news in energy these days is the revolution in technology for tapping shale gas. With important reserves near populated areas, governments will need to temper their enthusiasm and think about the balance between risks and riches. {see here that this comment is very timely – we just received an e-mail from the Atlantic Chapter of the Sierra Club – the SustainabiliTank.info editor – the letter is attached.}

The basic problem of complexity, technology, and regulation extends to many other areas of modern life. Nanotechnology and innovation in developing artificial organisms offer a huge potential boon to mankind, promising development of new materials, medicines, and treatment techniques. Yet, with all of these exciting technologies, it is extremely difficult to strike a balance between managing “tail risk” — a very small risk of a very large disaster — and supporting innovation.

Financial crises are almost comforting by comparison. Speculative bubbles and banking crises have been a regular feature of the economic landscape for centuries. Awful as they are, societies survive them.

True, people who thought, “This time is different,” before the recent Great Recession were proven wrong. But, even if we are not getting any better at dealing with financial crises, things have not necessarily been getting worse, either.

Perhaps the G20 government leaders have not done quite as brilliant a job plugging the hole in the financial system as they claim. The raging sovereign-debt problems in continental Europe, and the brewing ones in the U.S., Japan and elsewhere are proof enough of that. But, compared to BP’s efforts to plug its oil hole, the G20 leaders look omnipotent.

- – -

If ever there were a wakeup call for Western society to rethink its dependence on ever-accelerating technological innovation for ever-expanding fuel consumption, surely the BP oil spill should be it. Even China, with its “boom now, deal with the environment later” strategy should be taking a hard look at the Gulf of Mexico.

Economics teaches us that when there is huge uncertainty about catastrophic risks, it is dangerous to rely too much on the price mechanism to get incentives right. Unfortunately, economists know much less about how to adapt regulation over time to complex systems with constantly evolving risks, much less how to design regulatory resilient institutions. Until these problems are better understood, we may be doomed to a world of regulation that perpetually overshoots or undershoots its goals.

The finance industry already is warning that new regulation may overshoot — that is, have the unintended effect of sharply impeding growth. Now, we may soon face the same concerns over energy policy, and not just for oil.

Given the huge financial stakes involved, achieving global consensus will be difficult, as the Copenhagen climate-change fiasco proved. The advanced countries, which can best afford to restrain long-term growth, must lead by example. The balance of technology, complexity, and regulation is without doubt one of the greatest challenges that the world must face in 21st century. We can ill afford to keep getting it wrong.

——————
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Atlantic Chapter Action Alerts <ATL-ACTIONALERTS@lists.sierraclub.org> date Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 9:58 PM subject Call to stop Hydrofracking.

We need to pass the Englebright/Addabbo (A.10490/S.7592) bill before June 21, the end of this legislative session!

We must delay permitting of horizontal drilling until the EPA concludes its study of hydrofracking’s impacts on water quality and public health. The DEC is poised to allow permitting of hydraulic fracturing before the end of 2010, and the legislature is not due back until 2011! Without the E/A bill’s passage, the state stands open to the imminent onset of drilling. For the text of the bill, visit http://open.nysenate.gov/legislation/bill/S7592.

It is urgent that you call your state senator and ask him/her to reach out to Sen. Thompson, asking him to put the bill on Wednesday’s agenda.

Find your senator at http://www.nysenate.gov.

The Economist online  www.economist-online-newsletters-admin a… From the Desk of Economist Editor John Micklethwait

The most intelligent digest of the news online.

————–

Editor’s Highlights | May 20th 2010

And man made life It is always hard for non-scientists to gauge the importance of an announcement from a laboratory. This week however something dramatic happened. Artificial life, the stuff of dreams and nightmares, arrived. Craig Venter and Hamilton Smith, the two American biologists who unravelled the first DNA sequence of a living organism, have made a bacterium that has an artificial genome—creating a living creature with no ancestor. It is now possible to conceive of a world in which new bacteria (and eventually, new animals and plants) are designed on a computer and then grown to order. That ability would prove mankind’s mastery over nature in a way more profound than even the detonation of the first atomic bomb. It also raises deep questions. “Predator” and “disease” are just as much part of the biological vocabulary as “nurturing” and “growth”. Our cover leader looks at the consequences of this brave new world. Here are some other pieces from this week’s issue you might also be interested in. You can click straight through to each one and read it at The Economist online using the links below.

This week’s highlights The battle of Bangkok Slaughter seems to have been averted; civil war sadly remains a possibility Read more Does Facebook know too much about you? Both it and Google should change the way they look after personal information Read more A 16-page special report on water Finite, vital, much wanted, little understood, water looks unmanageable. It needn’t be Read more Labour’s love lost Who should lead Britain’s opposition now that Gordon Brown has gone? Read more Hello young Paul, farewell old Specter Our verdict on the primaries Read more

The CNN ireport – LIVING IN A TOXIC TOWN. CNN and Dr. Sanjay Gupta invite you to put on video what you know.
 http://www.ireport.com/ir-topic-stories….

Living in a toxic town

Many residents of Mossville, Louisiana, suspect their proximity to more than a dozen chemical plants may be responsible for what they say are high rates of cancer and other diseases in the area.

Is there a place near you where pollution is making people sick? CNN is investigating the environment’s effects on health as part of Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s Toxic Towns USA special. We want you to join us in the newsgathering process.

“Put yourself on video and document conditions in your area, or take photos of what’s around you. Tell us what industrial or chemical pollution may be contributing to health problems for you and those you love, and be sure not to put yourself in a dangerous situation,” CNN writes.

“Tell us about toxic towns near you and Dr. Gupta may report on your community.”

from bsabbag@gmail.com date Mon, Apr 26, 2010 subject Paper “Civil Liability for Environmental Damage related to Climate Change in Brazil”.

Please find attached the paper named “Civil Liability for Environmental Damage related to Climate Change in Brazil”, which we have just published at the Penn State University’s Conference on “Integrating Development and Climate Change Ethics.”

Integrating Development and Climate Change Ethics

Conference: April 14–16, 2010
Nittany Lion Inn, Penn State.

(http://rockethics.psu.edu/climate/events/idcce/).
 https://mail.google.com/mail/?attid=0.1&…

We will be glad to receive your comments, as well as to further discuss climate change law in Brazil and worldwide.

Best regards,
Bruno Kerlakian Sabbag.

Jill Lawrence, Columnist of Politics Daily, an aol.com blog – says “New Nukes? A Three Mile Island ‘Survivor’ Says Not So Fast.”
POSTED: 02/19/10

President Obama’s move to revive nuclear power, with $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees for two reactors in Georgia, has special resonance for those of us who experienced the Three Mile Island nuclear scare. In retrospect, the T-shirts that said “I Survived TMI” were overly dramatic. But at the time it didn’t seem that way — which may be why I’m deeply ambivalent about the second coming of nukes.

In March 1979, I was in my 20s, the only woman among five reporters in the cramped Associated Press bureau at the state Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa. And I was a newcomer. I had been there just six weeks when the report came in that state troopers had shut down a reactor in Middletown, about 10 miles down the Susquehanna River.

It was the start of a terrifying few days during which we all learned phrases like “partial core meltdown” and “fuel rods” and “containment building.”

Some of the first foreign journalists to arrive were from Japan, evoking the spectacularly un-reassuring memory of the A-bomb and rampant radiation sickness. But then, nothing at the time was reassuring. The AP sent in radiation suits and drew up a helicopter evacuation plan. I was to be on the first flight out; the hope was to preserve my ability to bear children.

It never came to that (and a few years later I had two sons). Still, there were surreal and heart-pounding moments that remain vivid today.

I remember driving through Middletown in unseasonably warm weather a day or two after the episode began, my car window wide open. Suddenly a radio announcer barked an emergency warning: Bursts of radiation coming from the plant! Close your windows! Stay indoors! I closed the window and tried not to panic.

I remember the Hersheypark Arena evacuation center, teeming with pregnant women, preschool children and out-of-town media. I remember going to see “The China Syndrome,” a film about a core meltdown at a nuclear plant, during the TMI siege — and the gasps throughout the theater when one of the characters said a meltdown could contaminate an area “the size of the state of Pennsylvania.”

There was the celebrity-packed 1979 No Nukes concert in Washington. I attended as a private citizen (wearing a Solar Power T-shirt, it can now be told) and saw John Hall of the band Orleans lead an all-star chorus of “Power,” an ode to “the warm power of the sun” and a protest of “atomic poison power.”  There was also the modest Harrisburg version of the Gridiron Show, where journalists poke fun at the powerful. We pranksters rewrote Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now to parody then-Gov. Dick Thornburgh’s positions on nuclear power.
The more serious aftermath of TMI included lawsuits, cancer scares, years of debate over who should pay for the billion-dollar cleanup, and the dramatic moment when cleanup workers in space suits would enter the containment building for the first time. It was before cell phones and laptops. Reporters skirmished angrily over two available landlines (yes, I was one of them) and one poor guy — who wasn’t at the scene — sent out a bulletin from his office trumpeting the milestone. Except the door had stuck and no workers got inside that day. Seven years later came Chernobyl, the nuclear meltdown that forced the evacuation of more than 336,000 people and is ultimately expected to kill 4,000.

Given all that, it’s not surprising that nuclear power has been on hold in the United States since TMI, with 104 plants supplying about 20 percent of U.S. electricity. But nor is it surprising that it seems poised for a comeback. Last year, Gallup found that 59 percent of the public favored nuclear power. The industry has been far more focused on safety since TMI, both in procedures and design.

External factors also have changed. There was no alarm in 1979 about global warming or the fossil fuels that contribute to it. Gasoline had not gone to $4 a gallon. And the nations selling us oil were not potential nuclear foes or havens for suicidal terrorist attackers. “Those who had misgivings about nuclear power had a clear path to raise them in a vacuum,” absent the concerns we have now, Thornburgh told me. He said the 30-year, post-TMI debate “has been overtaken by events.”
Thornburgh came into office 72 days before the accident and gave a harrowing account of his experience last year at a 30th anniversary observance hosted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “Anybody who went through that period of time there has some residual concerns,” he told me. But he said that as a practical matter, the country needs more nuclear power in its energy mix. “If it is really unsafe and undesirable, you ought to dismantle all the plants that are out there now,” Thornburgh said. “Nobody’s suggesting that.”

What about some of the other players from the TMI era? John Hall, the “No Nukes” musician, is now a congressman from upstate New York and he’s still fighting nuclear power. W. Wilson Goode, a former Philadelphia mayor who now works with children whose parents are in prison, is another opponent. He was chairman of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission when it had to figure out how much, if anything, utility customers should pay for the accident cleanup.

Goode says his views were shaped by the concerns of people living around the plant and “the almost reckless ways” that the utility management dealt with the accident. “Every nuclear plant we build, we run a risk of a catastrophe at some point … that cannot be controlled,” he told me. “No one has yet convinced me that it is something we can make safe. And the fact is they’re easy targets for terrorists.”

Thomas Cochran, a senior scientist in the nuclear program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, advised the NRC on the TMI cleanup and a law firm on how to spend $5 million from a successful class action lawsuit (they did cancer studies and installed radiation monitors near TMI). He says federal help to the nuclear industry — on proliferation, risk insurance, waste disposal and now loan guarantees — is giving an unwarranted financial edge to huge plants that take 10 years of lead time to plan and build. It’s especially galling to Cochran that Obama is selling nuclear power as a way to cut carbon pollution and slow climate change.

“It’s not a good idea for the government to go around subsidizing uneconomical technology,” Cochran told me. “You’re in effect putting your thumb on the scale and penalizing technologies that provide climate relief faster and cheaper and more safely than nuclear power.”

To the extent that Obama offered the nuclear loan guarantees to win Republican votes for an energy and climate bill, Cochran added, the move came too early: “From a crass political standpoint, he should have used it as a bargaining chip.”

Politics aside, Cochran and Thornburgh — a Republican — agree that the great unresolved issue is how to dispose of nuclear waste. It is ironic that Obama demonstrated a renewed commitment to nuclear power in the same month that his budget sounded the death knell for the highly controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada.

So what about me? Much as I love that John Hall YouTube clip, I am not a flower child. I look at France and see a society functioning smoothly and safely on nuclear power. And yet, if nuclear is so important to our future, why are we still waiting for a definitive solution to the nuclear waste problem? We have the brainpower, I don’t doubt that. But will we be able to summon the will and the wallet, as the first President Bush once put it, to get it done?

In the end, nuclear power is one of those facets of modern life that requires a leap of faith, the kind I take every time I step onto an airplane. Do you understand technology? Do you trust it? Do you trust those responsible for keeping you safe? It’s been a long time since I survived TMI. I’m getting there on the trust thing. The feds could close the deal with me by launching a Manhattan Project on nuclear waste disposal, deadline any time before those new Georgia reactors come online.

 http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-vine/what-th…

What The Snowpocalypse Tells Us About Global Warming.
by Bradford Plumer, February 10, 2010, The New Republic online

Washington D.C.’s getting slammed by record snowfall right now, which means that in addition to unplowed roads and Mad Max-style scenes at Safeway, we also have to suffer through a flurry of Al Gore jokes and Republicans snorting about how this proves global warming is all fake. I guess the prim, boring response is that a single weather event, even an extreme one, doesn’t tell us very much about long-term climate trends. But blah, blah, everyone’s heard that line before.

A more thoughtful reply comes from meteorologist Jeff Masters, who explains how massive snowstorms in the Northeast are, in fact, quite consistent with a steadily warming world:

There are two requirements for a record snow storm:

1) A near-record amount of moisture in the air (or a very slow moving storm).

2) Temperatures cold enough for snow.

It’s not hard at all to get temperatures cold enough for snow in a world experiencing global warming.

According to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, the globe warmed 0.74°C (1.3°F) over the past 100 years. There will still be colder than average winters in a world that is experiencing warming, with plenty of opportunities for snow.

The more difficult ingredient for producing a record snowstorm is the requirement of near-record levels of moisture.

Global warming theory predicts that global precipitation will increase, and that heavy precipitation events–the ones most likely to cause flash flooding–will also increase. This occurs because as the climate warms, evaporation of moisture from the oceans increases, resulting in more water vapor in the air.

According to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, water vapor in the global atmosphere has increased by about 5% over the 20th century, and 4% since 1970. This extra moisture in the air will tend to produce heavier snowstorms, assuming it is cold enough to snow. Groisman et al. (2004) found a 14% increase in heavy (top 5%) and 20% increase in very heavy (top 1%) precipitation events in the U.S. over the past 100 years, though mainly in spring and summer. However, the authors did find a significant increase in winter heavy precipitation events have occurred in the Northeast U.S.

This was echoed by Changnon et al. (2006), who found, “The temporal distribution of snowstorms exhibited wide fluctuations during 1901-2000, with downward 100-yr trends in the lower Midwest, South, and West Coast. Upward trends occurred in the upper Midwest, East, and Northeast, and the national trend for 1901-2000 was upward, corresponding to trends in strong cyclonic activity.”

Meanwhile, it’s worth noting the U.S. Global Change Research Program actually predicted stronger winter storms for the Northeast, in its 2009 report on potential climate-change impacts for the United States:

Storm tracks have shifted northward over the last 50 years as evidenced by a decrease in the frequency of storms in mid-latitude areas of the Northern Hemisphere, while high-latitude activity has increased. There is also evidence of an increase in the intensity of storms in both the mid- and high-latitude areas of the Northern Hemisphere, with greater confidence in the increases occurring in high latitudes (Kunkel et al., 2008). The northward shift is projected to continue, and strong cold season storms are likely to become stronger and more frequent, with greater wind speeds and more extreme wave heights.”

Now, that doesn’t mean we can definitely say that global warming caused this snow monstrosity—again, it’s too hard to attribute any single weather event to long-term climate shifts. (For instance, El Niño may be playing a bigger role right now in feeding these storms.) At most, we can say that a warming climate will create the conditions that make fierce winter storms in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic more likely. Or at least it will for awhile: If the planet keeps heating up, then at some point freezing conditions in the Northeast will become very rare, at which point snowstorms will, too But we’re not at that point—the Earth hasn’t warmed that much yet.

On the other hand, climate models do predict that snowstorms in the southernmost parts of the United States should become much rarer in the coming decades: There’s plenty of moisture down south, but freezing temperatures are likely to decrease and the jet stream is expected to shift northward. So if those regions start seeing a sustained uptick in snowfall, then something’s gone awry in climate predictions. But the blizzard in the Northeast, while miserable and incredibly disruptive, doesn’t appear whack with long-term forecasts. (That’s not exactly cheerful news for those of us who have to live here.)

—————
Dr. Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog

Last Updated: 1:02 PM GMT on February 11, 2010.
Heavy snowfall in a warming world.

Posted by: JeffMasters on February 08, 2010

A major new winter storm is headed east over the U.S. today, and threatens to dump a foot or more of snow on Philadelphia, New York City, and surrounding regions Tuesday and Wednesday. Philadelphia is still digging out from its second top-ten snowstorm of recorded history to hit the city this winter, and the streets are going to begin looking like canyons if this week’s snowstorm adds a significant amount of snow to the incredible 28.5″ that fell during “Snowmageddon” last Friday and Saturday. Philadelphia has had two snowstorms exceeding 23″ this winter. According to the National Climatic Data Center, the return period for a 22+ inch snow storm is once every 100 years–and we’ve had two 100-year snow storms in Philadelphia this winter. It is true that if the winter pattern of jet stream location, sea surface temperatures, etc, are suitable for a 100-year storm to form, that will increase the chances for a second such storm to occur that same year, and thus the odds have having two 100-year storms the same year are not 1 in 10,000. Still, the two huge snowstorms this winter in the Mid-Atlantic are definitely a very rare event one should see only once every few hundred years, and is something that has not occurred since modern records began in 1870. The situation is similar for Baltimore and Washington D.C. According to the National Climatic Data Center, the expected return period in the Washington D.C./Baltimore region for snowstorms with more than 16 inches of snow is about once every 25 years. This one-two punch of two major Nor’easters in one winter with 16+ inches of snow is unprecedented in the historical record for the region, which goes back to the late 1800s.

Top 9 snowstorms on record for Philadelphia:

1. 30.7″, Jan 7-8, 1996
2. 28.5″, Feb 5-6, 2010 (Snowmageddon)
3. 23.2″, Dec 19-20, 2009 (Snowpocalypse)
4. 21.3″, Feb 11-12, 1983
5. 21.0″, Dec 25-26, 1909
6. 19.4″, Apr 3-4, 1915
7. 18.9″, Feb 12-14, 1899
8. 16.7″, Jan 22-24, 1935
9. 15.1″, Feb 28-Mar 1, 1941

The top 10 snowstorms on record for Baltimore:

1. 28.2″, Feb 15-18, 2003
2. 26.5″, Jan 27-29, 1922
3. 24.8″, Feb 5-6, 2010 (Snowmageddon)
4. 22.8″, Feb 11-12, 1983
5. 22.5″, Jan 7-8, 1996
6. 22.0″, Mar 29-30, 1942
7. 21.4″, Feb 11-14, 1899
8. 21.0″, Dec 19-20, 2009 (Snowpocalypse)
9. 20.0″, Feb 18-19, 1979
10. 16.0″, Mar 15-18, 1892

The top 10 snowstorms on record for Washington, D.C.:

1. 28.0″, Jan 27-28, 1922
2. 20.5″, Feb 11-13, 1899
3. 18.7″, Feb 18-19, 1979
4. 17.8″ Feb 5-6, 2010 (Snowmageddon)
5. 17.1″, Jan 6-8, 1996
6. 16.7″, Feb 15-18, 2003
7. 16.6″, Feb 11-12, 1983
8. 16.4″, Dec 19-20, 2009 (Snowpocalypse)
9. 14.4″, Feb 15-16, 1958
10. 14.4″, Feb 7, 1936

OP-ED COLUMNIST, The New York Times.
TIME IS RUNNING OUT.

By BOB HERBERT
Published: February 5, 2010
Palo Alto, Calif. – We’ve now lost 8.4 million jobs in this recession, and a vast majority of them are gone for good. The politicians are clambering aboard the jobs bandwagon, belatedly, but very few are telling the truth about the structural employment problems in the U.S. and the extremely heavy lift that is necessary to halt our declining living standards and get us back to an economy that is self-sustaining.

We don’t hear a lot that is serious about the sorry state of the nation’s infrastructure or the trade policies that crippled so many American industries or our inability (or unwillingness) to compete effectively with China when it comes to the new world of energy for the 21st century or our abject failure to provide a quality public education for the next generation of American workers, scientists, artists and entrepreneurs.

Speaking at a conference here on Wednesday, Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania said that if we don’t act quickly in developing long-term solutions to these and other problems, the United States will be a second-rate economic power by the end of this decade. A failure to act boldly, he said, will result in the U.S. becoming “a cooked goose.”

{Governor Edward G. Rendell, a Democrat of Pennsylvania, early backer of Hillary Clinton for President, but later switched to Barak Obama Saying he would be the better President, we hope is not the kind of leader that will just back the labor unions by using key word “infrastructure” and mean what he says when calling for a green future as the main motor for creating the needed jobs. Editor comment for ST,info}

Neither the politicians nor much of the mainstream media are spelling out the severity of these enormous structural problems or the sense of urgency needed to address them. Living standards are sinking in the United States, and there is no coherent vision or plan for reversing that ominous trend over the long term.

The conference was titled, “The Next American Economy: Transforming Energy and Infrastructure Investment.” It was put together by the Brookings Institution and Lazard, the investment banking advisory firm.

When Governor Rendell addressed the conference on Wednesday, he used words like “stunning” and “unbelievable” to describe what has happened to the nation’s infrastructure. His words echoed the warnings we’ve been hearing for years from the American Society of Civil Engineers, which tells us: “The broken water mains, gridlocked streets, crumbling dams and levees, and delayed flights that come from failing infrastructure have a negative impact on the checkbook and on the quality of life of each and every American.”

The conference was sparked by a sense of dismay over what has happened to the U.S. economy over the past several years and a feeling that constructive ideas about solutions were being smothered by an obsessive focus on the short-term in this society, and by the chronic dysfunction and hyperpartisanship in much of the government.

I was struck by the absence of grousing and finger-pointing at the conference and the emphasis on trying to develop new ways to establish an economy that is not based on financial flimflammery, that enhances America’s competitive position in the world, and that relieves us of the terrible burden of reliance on foreign energy sources.

I was also struck by the pervasive sense that if we don’t get our act together then the glory days of the go-go American economic empire will fade like the triumphs of an aging Hollywood star. One of the participants raised the very real possibility of Americans having to get used to living in an economy “that won’t be number one,” an economy that perhaps is more like Germany’s.

Rescuing the U.S. economy will require a commitment, and undoubtedly sacrifices, that need to start now. And it will require leadership that pulls together the best talents from all sectors of the society — not just business, not just government, but from everywhere.

Bruce Katz, the director of Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program, discussed some of the steps that need to be taken to remake an economy that has been thrown completely out of whack by frantic, debt-driven consumption, speculative bubbles, exotic financial instruments, and so on.

A new, saner, more sustainable economy will have to be more export-oriented, powered by cleaner fuels, bolstered by innovation that comes from a renewed focus on research and development, and committed to delivering a better-educated, more highly skilled work force.

Mr. Katz believes this is doable, but by no means easy. The nation’s infrastructure, he said, will have to “shift from 20th-century models of transport and energy transmission to rapid bus, ubiquitous broadband, congestion pricing, smart grid, high-speed rail and intelligent transport.”

New ways of financing such transformative changes will have to be developed, linking public and private capital, preferably through the creation of a national infrastructure bank, among other things. The nation’s political leaders and the public at large will have to grasp the difference between wasteful spending and crucial investments in the future.

It’s time for serious people to step forward and help lead on these critically important issues. Time is short.

Dr. James McGann comes to the UN to talk before a UNU Current Affairs
Series session about the “World Rankings of Think-Tanks.” These are institutions that can be of tremendous help to policy makers.

Thursday, January 21, 2010, we learned at the UN about the way how at
the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. James McGann, as part of the Think
Tanks and Civil Societies Program, he serves as its Director, he
looks, as a Policy Research objective, at The Global – “Go-To Think
Tanks” concept. He is also the Assistant Director of the International
Relations Program at the U of Penn. He runs his own consulting firm
and was advisor to the World Bank, the UN, USAID, and various
foundations the likes of Soros, Hewlett and Gates Foundations, and
other Philanthropic Institutions, and Foreign Governments, on the roles
of NGOs. Public Policy, Civil Society, Charities and Academic issues.

He categorized the Global Think-Tanks, and came up with lists of
ranking for these institutions. Dr. McGann is also a senior fellow at
the Foreign Policy Research Institution (FPRI), and as he wrote in a
FOREIGN POLICY MAGAZINE article – “Think-Tanks are also called
governments in waiting.

They are needed by leaders around the world to provide independent
analysis, help set policy agendas, and bridge the gap between academia
and policy-making” – and we must add that the UN is in very serious
need to have such an institution on its campus – so the leaders can
breathe a little easier in their decision making process when
attempting to find that golden path in between the various oppressive
pointers, they get daily, from the Member States’ delegates.

McGann has gone over 6500 think-tanks from around the globe in his
present study. This study ranks them, and provides an insider’s
guide that will appear this year in book form, to be released by
Routledge Global Institutions Series. He gave us sort of a pre-print
of that study.

His work is sort of an Input – Output report but he said -”we want the impact measures – not just output measures. We want independent Think-Tanks that challenge conventional wisdom – he said. He received nominations from NGO’s but to be on the list he required to get also support for the nomination from other sources. He mentioned two and two in order to get on the list. The US has a separate listing because they are more in numbers and are better funded, he said.

The Top Top Think Tanks of the United States are:

1. Brookings Institution

2. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

3. Council on Foreign Relations

4. RAND Corporation

5. Heritage Foundation

6. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

7. Cato Institute

8. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

9. American Enterprise Institute

10. Hoover Institution

11. Peterson Institute for International Economics

12. Freedom House

13. Aepen Institute

14. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

15. German Marshall Fund

16. United States Institute for Peace

17. Center for American Progress

18. Open Society Institute (OSI)

19. Center for Global Development

20. Center for Transatlantic Relations SAIS Johns Hopkins

21. Human Rights Watch

22. Urban Institute

23. Pew Center on Global Climate Change

24. Stimson Center (FNA Henry Stimson Center)

25. World Bank Research Department

26. Harvard Center for International Development

27. Carter Center

28. East West Institute

29.Manhattan Institute

30. Atlantic Council

31. International Crisis Group

32. Hudson Institute

33. Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

34. World Resources Institute

35. Center for New American Security

36. Resources for the Future (RFF)

37. Baker Institute for Public Policy

38. Competitive Enterprise Institute

39. International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

40. TED

41. World Watch Institute.

42. Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

43. Reason Foundation

44. United States War College

45. Center for Budget and Policy Priorities

46. Economic Policy Institute

47. Mercatus Center

48. Acton Institute

49. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies

50. The Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Our comments: Looking at that list and Having worked with two of the Institutions on that list, with our experience in the United States, it becomes obvious that in order to be high on the list – the institution better be headquartered in Washington DC close to the seats of power. Further, it is funded by industry and business lobbies, and in effect becomes a lobby themselves by arranging for conferences that are tilted in the sponsors direction. If that makes them also part of the tilt to right and conservatism in American politics it might just be coincidental – but nevertheless it is a clear result from the need for permanent financing. Academic institutions are not prominent on that list, and this is thus also a coincidental result of the way the institutions are financed. The fact that Brookings is number one is the exception that proves the rule in the sense that it is a well centered institution receiving backing so that it is not all on the Republican side. The fact that The Earth Institute is at the bottom of that list, and most other academic institutes did not make it at all – just is another proof of our observation. Having said the above, we nevertheless agree – that in terms of actual results with Washington decision makers – the rankings seem to us to be correct. Our comment is nevertheless standing – even Think Tanks cannot be viewed as completely stand-alone truly investigative bodies because money rules in Washington.

Further, Having worked in the 70s with Mr. Hermann Kahn of the Croton-on-the-Hudson based Hudson Institute, I know first hand how that institution was instrumental in helping formulate US only Energy Policy ever – the creation of the Synfuels Corporation. Granted that in those days the interest of US Energy Independence were coal oriented – coal liquids and coal gases – never the less we introduced also oil shales and biofuels because we thought they should be parts of the policy package.  After the passing away of Mr. Kahn and the lackluster General Haig Hudson leadership, that Institution was moved to Indianapolis with a Washington office and lost much of its Washington influence.

Later, in the 80s, with Washington DC based CSIS – an institution whose energy studies are heavily influenced by the oil industry – nevertheless a second group under Mr. Charly Ebinger was established so we could look at non petroleum fuels and work with the US Department of Defense when the doors at US Department of Energy were closed to non-petroleum energy. Thanks to the imprint CSIS had on Washington, the results of our studies became also policy implemented in Washington and both those two experiences convinced me that with all the funding straight jackets Think-Tanks can nevertheless do somehow solid work.

——————-

Mr. McGann remarked that 5 to 7 years ago he started to get questions about what are the leading global Think-Tanks and how does a National Think-Tank transform into a Global Think-Tank? The challenge for the new millennium is how to harness this new breed og GLOBAL THINK-TANKS – knowledge-based, policy oriented to serve governments, IGOS, and Civil Society by generating Policy-Oriented Research, Analysis, and Advice. I could not but think that this is really why he was spending his time with us at the UN as a guest of the UNU which is indeed the only in-house institution at the UN that has the potential to become a UN Think-Tank if the UN Secretary General would only call upon them for advice – and tell the rest of the UN to do the same!

But clearly – I am jumping the gun ar this moment.

——————-

In his process leading eventually to listings ofbest GLOBAL Think-Tanks, the McGann team first prepared regional listings outside the US. (Tables #2 – #

These include the following tables – all based on Table #1 – an alphabetically arranged list of 392 Leading Think-Tanks In The World.

Those were base on the global total of Think-Tanks where the 25 countries with most Think-Tanks are:

1. the US         1815

2. China           428

3. UK                285

4. India             261

5. Germany      190

6. France          168

7.  Argentina    132

8. Russia           109

9. Japan            108

10. Canada          97

11.Italy                 88

12. South Africa 84

13. Sweden          74

14. Switzerland  71

15. Netherlands  57

16. Mexico            55

17. Romania         54

18. Israel               52

19. Taiwan            52

20. Belgium          51

21. Bolivia             51

22. Spain              50

23.Brazil               48

24. Ukraine          45

25. Poland            41

and this dwindles down until the number zero is attributed to 23 counties – among those to Monaco, Myanmar(Burma), Oman, Turkmenistan – the remaining mainly SIDS or other small states. Many other have just one single Thin-Tank

——————–

Table # 6 provides the list of top 25 Mexico and Canada Think-Tanks with Mexico taking spots 4, 12, 14, 21, 22, 25.

Table # 7 provides the list for top 40 Think-Tanks in Latin America and the Caribbean region.

Table #8 provides the list for top 25 Think-Tanks for the Middle East – North Africa region and includes with the Arab States (a total of 11 listings), also the Caucasus (1 listing), Turkey (3 listings) and Israel (10 listings).

Table # 9 provides the list of the top 25 Sub-Saharan Africa.

Tables # 10 and #11 provide the lists for top 40 Western  and 40 top Central and Eastern European Think-Tanks with the dividing line going strangely along the former East – West political divide that bunches strangely Hungary with Russia still in one list while France, Germany, the UK and other Western States are in #10.   is this a look backwards or a look forwards?

Table # 12 provides the list for 40 Non-Arab Asian Think-Tanks that includes Australia.

—————–

Having done the above – Dr. McGann proceeds to pick on specific Thin-Tank topics of research and gets now down to the real usefulness for helping solve Global issues.

His Tables # 13 provides for the 10 top International Development Thinking Institutions.

# 14      “                         10 “     Health Policy Think Tanks.

# 15      “                         10 “      Environmental           “

# 16      ”                         10 “      Security and International Affairs Think Tanks

# 17     “                         10 “      Domestic Economic Policy Think Tanks: US (8),  Canada (1) and Germany (1).

# 18     ”                        10 ”        International Economic Policy Think Tanks.

#19                                10 “        Social Policy                                     “

#20                               10 “        Science and Technology                “

The comment that begs to be brought up at this point is that tables #13 – # 19 are pure US, Sweden, UK, Canada, Germany, Japan, Switzerland – with an obvious very great majority for US Think-Tanks – the few others are from classic OECD countries. Literally the only exception is in Table #20 where The Energy and Resources Institute of India has place number 9 on the list. Jarringly is the absence of China, Brazil, Argentina, Russia – any Latin American or African institution. I am sure there must have been possible even a token mention of someone besides that one Indian organization – at least in table #17 – I know at least in Brazil of institutions that help plan domestic policy! Sorry – these listings might cause difficulties if the UNU would attempt to go only by these tables – granted that we understand that the tables are based on evidence of success – but nevertheless – even China, Brazil and Russia have had some success stories the world needs to look at.

Having said above we look now at the remaining “Special Categories” Tables – #21  and#23 at the Most Innovative Policy – Outstanding Washington Think Tanks – The Brookings Institute and The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, USA organizations – we hope that when doing their work they outreach to obtain input from overseas. We do not believe that CATO and The American Enterprise Institute, also on those lists, are in the habit of doing so. The only non Washingtonian on those two Tables is Breugel from Belgium and we testify of having no idea what that institution does.

Table # 22 is nevertheless a ray of hope. It is titled: BEST NEW THINK TANK (established in the last three-five years).

The listings are:

1. European Council on Foreign relations, Belgium

2. Center for American Progress, USA

3. Bruegel, Belgium

4. Center for New American Security, USA

5. Carnegie Middle East Center, Lebanon

As I know and appreciate all the others, I had to look up “Bruegel” and at – /www.euractiv.com/en/pa/bruegel-newest-addition-think-tank-landscape-brussels/article-134327 I found:

BRUEGEL: newest addition to think tank landscape in Brussels.
Wed, 2005-01-19

A new EU think tank called the ‘Brussels European and Global Economic Laboratory’ (BRUEGEL) has been launched by former commissioner Mario Monti and French economist Pisani-Ferry in Brussels.

According to the Notre Europe report, EU think tanks have not yet “fully found their place in European policy-making: the value they add is not perceived clearly, they are seen as moderately useful, and even sometimes elitist. Overall, they are believed to have a limited impact on policies and public opinion. Some of the more established thinks tanks in Brussels include the Centre for European Policy Studies  (CEPS), the European Policy Centre  (EPC) and Friends of Europe. In recent times many new think thanks have been set up. A number of these work outside Brussels [several of them being  EurActiv content partners or occasional contributors].

So, here we are – there is a clear need for good think-tanks to help navigate the governing process. In the UN case, it will be needed to have a globally oriented super think-tank that can digest and combine the best ideas from the older well established and successful think-tanks we are familiar with today, it better be non-ideological and not-vindictive -  and form the real globally oriented think-tank the world of tomorrow needs desperately. The issue is not how to redress the evils of yester-years – but how to alleviate today’s suffering and how to avoid tomorrow’s suffering in most ethical and just ways possible.

—————

The Q&A:

Q from the audience – from a UN Foundation man: What are the leading TT in China and India? and in the Francophone World?  Further – what about the Qatar Foundation and in Africa apart from South Africa?

Q: What about The council on Foreign Relations filled with members of former Administrations? To whom are they accountable?

Q: Climate Change, Sustainability, Human Rights – How do you judge quality?

Answer from Dr. McGann: I explore the question of Think-Tanks in sectors in various parts of the world. He expects to come out with a book on the BRICS.

A Security & International Affairs TT. Here he works with the Hewlett and Gates Foundations looking into Africa.

I do not look into the OECD region but into the other regions of the world. The look into East Africa specifically rather then the global.

He did a major study on India that is circulated now in India – a highly centralized major democracy – a colonial and later Russian history related to India. Studies can be diminished by government funding.

China and the Google problem – not a very positive view in your face. The nature of analysis gets constrained. There are very few really independent Think-Tanks.

In funding – the US is the most highly diverse. He tracks the budgets in the US since 1983. They grow in very diverse strides in he US. The new EU model involves Government and international donors.

————–

second round of Questions:

Q: from a consultant on diversity

Q: from a Kazakh Foundation

Q: About development in Africa and access to Think-Tanks.

Answers from Dr. McGann: He watched Africa to look for ranges that do not favor Think-Tanks. Hard to bridge the gap between academics and policy. Most policy matters don’t read … The Dough Hammarskjold Foundation has many CEOs donating to high level research – some for universities – he said there will be policy tsunamis – it will be possible to pick up global trends to identify them before they get to a critical mass. In the donor community there is focus on high impact of funding to get to find ideas  – but “do tanks.”

From:  info at cultureChange.org

Climate Science: Shooting the Messenger
By Alex Smith, Radio Ecoshock

Regarding the recent attacks on top climate scientists, Radio Ecoshock
takes the case of Richard B. Alley. He is the Evan Pugh Professor of
Geosciences, at Penn State University. Alley is a Fellow of the American
Geophysical Union (AGU), and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
His popular book about ice cores is called “The Two Mile Time Machine.”

Alley was expected to give one of the best speeches of the December 2009
annual meeting of the AGU in San Francisco, and he did not disappoint. Here
is a short digest of that hour-long Bjerknes Lecture to the AGU in San
Francisco in December.

Professor Alley begins with the attack:

“I said these were interesting times. This is a copy of an email that was
sent to my administration [at Penn State] by an alum [alumni, former grad
of Penn State], and said alum copied me on this, so I believe I am fair.
The alum asks for certain personnel changes to be made, and I have just put
in the ones that relate to me.

“So for what it’s worth, ‘Dr. Alley’s work on CO2 levels and ice cores’ -
now I don’t actually do that but I talk about it – OK, ‘Dr. Alley’s work on
CO2 levels and ice cores has confirmed that CO2 lags Earth’s temperature.
This one scientific fact alone proves that CO2 is not the cause of the
recent warming.’

“I continue to mislead the scientific community. There should be prompt
response (getting rid of me), I have ‘crimes against the scientific
community, Penn State, the citizens of this great country and the citizens
of the world’ that ‘must be dealt with severely’ because of my ‘shameful’
activities.”

[laughter from the audience][applause]
_ _

To read the complete report and get audio links go to
 http://culturechange.org/go.html?599

Improving Global Governance and Reforming Global Finance.

A. COMBAT CORRUPTION:

Massive financial aid is usually wasted in impoverished third world (and other) countries with inept leadership, poor governance, pervasive corruption and inadequate legal, justice and educational systems. It invariably enriches their leaders, generals, and their families, and cohorts at the expense of their citizenry. Such governments also manipulate and exploit well intentioned and generous donors for their own ends. The continuing easy availability of funding from donor nations and NGO sources does little to improve domestic conditions, initiate progress, or develop self reliance. Financial assistance and aid must be properly controlled and targeted. Consequently, it would be of great humanitarian and governance benefit if the United Nations mandated that all member nations:

(1) impose compensation limitations on their heads of state, government and military officials, and their families and cohorts relative to their respective status, domestic living standards, GDP, and purchasing power of the local currency

(2) prohibit the removal of any and all personal funds and assets of said parties out of their respective countries and their acquiring of assets and real estate outside their borders

(3) require the submission of certified national annual reports and personal financial statements of said parties to itself and the IMF (or another international entity) and be publicly disclosed.

The World Court could have jurisdiction over compliance with said regulations, the UN over enforcement.

B GLOBAL FINANCIAL REFORMS:

An international institution (like the IMF) should be given oversight, supervision, and enforcement power to set and regulate transparency and disclosure standards in all global financial transactions and the authority to set and control: (a) uniform universal minimum equity requirements in each type and category of financial and derivative transactions and (b) uniform minimum reserve requirements for all banking, financial, and insurance and entities in order to reduce leverage, limit risk, enhance the stability and facilitate the operation and growth of the global economy.

C  REGULATE SOVEREIGN FUNDS SPENT OFFSHORE

While Sovereign Funds (and those of their affiliates) may be freely used as a reserve currency and a medium of exchange in international trade, they should be otherwise regulated by an international oversight and regulatory institution (like the IMF, World Bank, WTO, or OECD) and restricted to only lending to private and public enterprises. The country or state of origin of each qualified multi-national company or other borrower could guarantee each loan to protect the capital of the sovereign fund lender. Local or international banks could assist in placing and servicing said loans on a modest fee basis. This could: (1) help provide liquidity for the global economy; (2) help solve the worldwide fiscal crises without creating a stagflation that could result from the unlimited printing of Trillions of bailout and stimulus monies for questionable programs;(3) provide capitol to create and grow the jobs, trade, and revenues necessary for recovery of the global economy; and (4) avoid: (a) protectionism, economic/political aggression, strife, and conflict; (b) the undermining of national security and stability; and (c) the theft, control, or bargain acquisition of technology, natural resources, knowhow, industries, and jobs

Harry L. Langer

E-mail:  harrylanger at hllanger.com      �… September 23, 2009

HOLLYWOOD BACKS UN CAMPAIGN IN PUSH FOR WORLD LEADERS TO SIGN CLIMATE CHANGE PACT

A major Hollywood actor and director take starring roles in a United Nations public service announcement campaign launched today, aimed at compelling world leaders to “seal the deal” on a greenhouse gas emissions treaty at a climate change conference later this year.

Directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff, co-writer of the apocalyptic science-fiction blockbuster film – “The Day After Tomorrow” – which depicts catastrophic effects of global warming, the series of videos urge viewers to sign the online Climate Petition .

The announcements were shot in six locations across four continents and feature Don Cheadle, the star of Hotel Rwanda, a film based on the true story of a man who saved hundreds of lives during the 1994 genocide in the African country.

“The series is aimed at promoting public awareness and catalyzing action at the highest and humblest level to boost the prospects for a wide-ranging and transformative agreement at a crucial UN climate convention meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark in less than 80 days,” said UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Achim Steiner.

The conference in December brings together world leaders in a bid to agree an ambitious and far-reaching successor pact to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty setting greenhouse gas emission limits.

Also included in the announcements is world class violinist and UN Messenger of Peace Midori Goto, who said she was happy to lend her voice to those concerned about climate change.

Ms. Goto spotlighted the newly-appointed Prime Minister of Japan’ commitment to make substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

“We can act together to bring meaningful changes to our lives and to our environment,” she said. “Let’s sign the climate petition and let our voices be heard.”

Other videos in the series – released at the start of Global Climate Week, 21 to 25 September – are presented by President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives; Nobel Laureate for Peace Wangari Maathai; Animal Planet presenter and environmentalist Phillipe Cousteau; and wildlife film maker Saba Douglas-Hamilton.

* * *

VOTING FOR NEXT CHIEF OF UNESCO MOVES INTO THIRD ROUND

A third round of voting will be held tomorrow to try to select the next Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) after none of the nine candidates for the post were able to obtain a majority of ballots in the first two rounds.

The third round is scheduled to start about 3:30 p.m. tomorrow in Paris, where UNESCO’s Executive Board is conducting its latest session, the agency said on its website.

Earlier this week the 58-member Executive Board interviewed all nine candidates and then discussed those interviews in a private meeting. Voting is by secret ballot and a winner is chosen by a simple majority of the board. The first round was held yesterday and the second round was conducted this evening, but neither round produced a winner.

The nine candidates are comprised of five men and four women. They include Lithuania’s Ambassador to UNESCO, Ina Marciulionyte; Bulgarian former foreign minister Irina Gueorguieva Bokova; Ivonne Juez de A. Baki of Ecuador; and European Commissioner for External Relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner (Austria).

The other candidates are: Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosny; Tanzania’s Sospeter Mwijarubi Muhongo; Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alexander Vladimirovich Yakovenko; Algeria’s Mohammed Bedjaoui; and Assistant Director-General of UNESCO’s Africa department, Nouréini Tidjani-Serpos of Benin. The person chosen by the board will serve a four-year term. The term of Koïchiro Matsuura, the current Director-General, ends this November. Having served two terms, he is not eligible for another stint.

————————————————-

FUNDING SHORTAGE MAY FORCE UN AGENCY TO REDUCE FOOD AID TO KENYANS

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said today that a shortage of donations will soon force it to reduce monthly rations to millions of Kenyans in need of urgent assistance due to a combination of drought and high food prices.

“The funding shortfall is so severe that we will have to start reducing the size of rations early next month – the hardship people are facing is going from bad to worse,” WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said in a statement.

WFP is currently distributing 2.6 million drought-affected Kenyans with food aid and hopes to increase that number by 1.2 million.

In parts of central Kenya, 50 per cent of shallow wells, boreholes and other water sources have dried up, and people walk up to 30 kilometres in search of water, according to the agency.

“Drought has left farmers with empty fields and the carcasses of dead cattle litter the land in some of the worst affected areas,” said Ms. Sheeran.

“Malnutrition rates are rising beyond emergency levels. And staple food prices – 100 per cent above normal – are beyond the reach of the hungriest people who are trying to feed their families.”

The agency said it has only received 8 per cent – $24 million – of the $301 million needed to feed 3.8 million people over the next six months.

* * *

MORE MUST BE DONE TO REFORM GLOBAL FOOD SYSTEM TO FIGHT CRISIS, SAYS UN EXPERT

Investing in agriculture alone will not solve the food crisis, a United Nations independent expert said today, calling for stepped-up political will to address structural flaws in global food production, which is at the crux of the current emergency.

“The right to food is not the right to be fed,” Olivier De Schutter told reporters today in Geneva after briefing the Human Rights Council. “It is the right to access the means to produce food or to obtain an income that enables the purchase of adequate food.”

World leaders pledged $20 billion in agriculture in poor countries in July at the meeting of the Group of 20 (G20) industrialized countries in L’Aquila, Italy, but he called for a more ambitious policy.

“For one billion hungry people to escape poverty, the initiative announced at L’Aquila can only be a first step,” said Mr. De Schutter, who serves as the Special Rapporteur on the right to food. “It cannot be the last.”

Increased investment in agriculture is only a slice of the solution, he noted, calling for action to stabilize international food markets, which could face further disruption due to climate change.

Small farmers, he said, need access to land, credit, storage sites and support for cooperatives, among others, with measures necessary to alleviate hunger and malnutrition and boost the resilience of the most vulnerable people.

“As in the case of the financial system, it is the responsibility of policy-makers to take the decisions needed to ensure real change,” the expert stressed. “Political will is needed to tackle structural flaws in the global food system.”

Earlier this week, the head of the UN World Food Programme issued an urgent plea to ensure that those hardest hit by the financial crisis – considered by many to have started one year ago this week – are not forgotten.

There are more hungry people in the world and less food aid than ever before, while the flow of food aid is at its lowest in two decades, WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said in a statement.

“For the world’s most vulnerable, the perfect storm is hitting with a vengeance,” she said.

* * *

NO END IN SIGHT TO ECONOMIC CRISIS FOR HARD-HIT DEVELOPING WORLD – UN REPORT

The global economic crisis continues to push millions of the world’s most vulnerable people into poverty, hunger and early death, a new United Nations report warns, stressing that “green shoots” of recovery are not being felt by the poor in the developing world.

Estimates suggest that the worldwide recession has pushed 100 million more people below the poverty line and 61 million people have been added to the number of jobless over the last two years, according to the report.

“The ‘near poor’ are becoming the ‘new poor,’” Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro told reporters in New York at the launch of the Voices of the Vulnerable: the Economic Crisis from the Ground Up report.

“Workers in both the formal and informal sectors are being badly hit, particularly in manufacturing, commerce and construction,” said Ms. Migiro, before quoting one construction worker who said that the “monster” economic crisis is “devouring the poor.”

She added that migrants are finding their situation increasingly precarious, with forecasts predicting that remittances to developing countries will be reduced by over seven per cent this year.

“Youth unemployment is dramatically increasing,” Ms. Migiro stressed. “The number of unemployed youth has increased by as many as 18.2 million over the last year.”

In addition, the report – part of a new UN initiative to monitor and draw attention to emerging crises – notes that an increase of 100 million people suffer from hunger and infant mortality rates are set to rise by an additional 200,000 to 400,000 deaths each year from now to 2015, if the crisis persists.

“Many of the poor and vulnerable are running out of coping strategies,” said Ms. Migiro. “They are being exhausted by crisis after crisis,” including the global food and fuel price hike crises that struck last year, on top of local floods, droughts and conflicts.

The crises may have long-term consequences, with tens of millions of children suffering from cognitive and physical injury caused by malnutrition as a result of the food and economic crises.

Ms. Migiro warned that the spread of the H1N1 influenza pandemic to countries already devastated by the economic crisis, or the onset of new natural disasters, are among the last straws that may “break the back of overstretched populations and governments.”

The report is part of larger UN initiative called the Global Impact and Vulnerability Alert System (GIVAS), developed to provide early, real-time data to the international community on how external shocks, such as the economic crisis, are affecting the welfare of the vulnerable and poor.

The Secretary-General is slated to present the report to the annual high-level debate at the General Assembly in New York next week, which takes place ahead of the summit in Pittsburgh, United States, for the Group of 20 (G20) leading economic nations.

Both forums will address the impact of the ongoing economic crisis, with the report underscoring the need to protect not only the poor and vulnerable but also the increasing number of middle class families slipping into poverty.

* * *

BAN PRESSES G20 LEADERS TO MAINTAIN COMMITMENT TO HELP WORLD’S MOST VULNERABLE

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has written to the leaders of the so-called Group of 20 (G20) industrialized nations to cement their commitment to help the world’s most vulnerable who are bearing the brunt of the global economic turmoil.

In his letter to the leaders ahead of their gathering next week in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States, Mr. Ban exhorted them to deliver on the $1.1 trillion pledge – especially the $50 million earmarked for the poorest nations – made in London earlier this year

He also called on them to honour their official development assistance (ODA) commitments made in Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2005, of $155 billion by next year, with over one-third of that allotted for Africa.

Action must be accelerated to achieve the eight anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), said the letter. While strides have been made in areas where global investments have been scaled up, including AIDS and tuberculosis, progress is lagging in education, maternal health, smallholder agriculture and basic infrastructure.

The Secretary-General also urged progress on the fight against climate change through the setting up of a fair financing mechanism to provide $250 billion annually by 2020, in addition to ODA.

Investment in green technologies is vital in pulling the world out of the economic crisis, he stressed, as is governance to manage this new finance stream which must be directed to adaptation and mitigations at the national level.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, the Secretary-General said that despite talk of recovery from the international financial crisis which has marked its first anniversary, “we are still not out of the deep woods – and this crisis is layered upon the food crisis and the pandemic crisis.”

With over 100 million people expected to drop below the poverty line this year, he emphasized that we “simply must amplify the voices of the vulnerable and ensure that the world follows up on its pledges.”

In Pittsburgh, Mr. Ban will update the G20 leaders on the UN’s new Global Impact and Vulnerability System (GIVAS), which will deliver real-time data on the impacts of the economic turmoil on the world’s poor.

“To make the right policy responses, we must know, in real time, what is happening on the ground,” he said.

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UPCOMING MEETINGS CAN RALLY SUPPORT FOR UN-BACKED NUCLEAR TREATY, SAYS OFFICIAL

A set of meetings to be held next week at United Nations Headquarters could have a significant impact on efforts to bring the treaty banning nuclear testing worldwide into force, a senior official leading those efforts said today.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) has been signed by 181 countries and ratified by 149. However, it needs to be ratified by nine others – China, Egypt, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and the United States – before it can enter into force.

Tibor Tóth, Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission of the CTBT Organization (CTBTO), highlighted the conference to promote the treaty and its entry into force, which will take place on 24 and 25 September in New York.

In addition, US President Barack Obama is scheduled to chair a meeting of the Security Council on 24 September focusing on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, including the CTBT.

Mr. Tóth welcomed what he described as a “stronger interest” by the US on these matters. “I see an attention which is underpinning the preparations for the ratification discussion in the [US] Senate.”

He also noted that the National Academy of Sciences was requested to prepare a study which will provide the necessary information to the Senate and to those who will have to review the ratification.

There is also movement from other quarters, he added, including an indication by Indonesia that it will ratify the treaty. All in all, he said he is “very much optimistic” about the political momentum that has been building over the past two and a half years.

“The climate is much better now,” said Mr. Tóth. “We have sunny political weather.”

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has also highlighted the “crucial window of opportunity” currently available regarding nuclear disarmament.

“More leaders are speaking out. The wind is at our back,” he said yesterday at his monthly news conference. “With a strong push by the right leaders, we can bring the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty into force.”

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NEW GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT CALLS FOR STRENGTHENING OF 192-MEMBER BODY

The new General Assembly President, Ali Treki of Libya, today reiterated his call for the revitalization of the 192-member body, saying its decisions should be respected. At present only the decisions of the 15-member Security Council are binding.

“The majority of countries are in favour asserting the authority of the General Assembly, which represents the world as a whole,” he told a news conference at UN Headquarters in New York.

Dr. Treki made a similar call for UN reform when he opened the Assembly’s 64th session on Tuesday, and he reiterated today the need to enlarge the Security Council to give it greater world representation.

Asked about his priorities, Dr. Treki cited a long list, beginning with the strengthening of international peace and security, disarmament, human rights, the environment, and climate change.

He also included combating extreme poverty; infectious diseases such as AIDS; achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which aim to slash a host of social ills by 2015; the economic, financial, food and energy crises; and the question of Palestine.

In addition, Dr. Treki called for greater investment in Africa, which he described as “a very rich continent. It doesn’t need really money, men and help but it needs investment.”

* * *

We post this as we are in full agreement that the Obama Administration is too close to Wall Street and has wasted some more trillions by throwing money at the bubbles-creators. On the other hand, we seem to find that he had to do so in order to avoid being accused by labor that he did not back the “is” and caused thus loss of employment before actually showing that he did try to save the “is” – but it did not work, This as a prelude to real change that started only when his Administration picked as a target the suicidal auto-motive industry. We hope that now there is no more this looking back effect – and the fact that the Republicans are so far behind in their develoment will help him in this.

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From: “Jerome Heyes” <jerome2heyes@yahoo.com>
Date: May 1, 2009
To: “pj” <pj@sustainabilitank.com>
Subject: Response to the Arlen Specter Party Switch

Arlen Specter leaving the Republican Party demonstrates the vacuum of ideas, not just Republican ideas, but the complete absence of well-thought-out alternative to Obama’s plans. Somebody needs to sit down with the Democrats and discuss the ramifications the huge deficit we are leaving our children. Yes, sit down with them, but leave out the name-calling, the questioning of Obama’s patriotism, the character assassination, the potty-mouth, and the insistence that the only response to any Democratic suggestion is “No.”

I am a fan of Obama, and a lifelong Democrat, but I recognize the danger of one-party rule, and today, the only party opposed to the Democrats is dominated by people who use terms like “baby-killer” to define their opponents. Republican leaders insist on describing Democrats in the worst of all possible terms, ascribing to them the lowest motives and morals. This one-note symphony is all you hear. After the Specter announcement, Republican leaders clearly resisted any self-analysis, and simply hurled insults: “Take McCain and his daughter with you,” and “We’re better off without him.” Republican ex-senator Rick Santorum couldn’t resist getting graphically profane, and before the day’s end, another Republican representative claimed that Democrats are responsible for Swine Flu.

Yes, Repubs just can’t lay off the name-calling. They call Obama 0A”socialist,” even though he’s presiding over the largest corporate giveaway in US history, with very few strings attached. That’s sad, because on this one point, the far left and right actually agree: The administration is too chummy with Wall Street and the banks. The thinkers of both sides of the isle agree that the Administration’s solution to our economic woes is too bank-centric. Now, in countries with a parliamentary system, what we’d be witnessing right now is a strategic alliance between the left and right, designed to reign in the Administration’s love affair with Wall Street. But for that to happen, the Republicans must put forth ideas, not just repeat the “lower taxes” mantra endlessly. Will they change? No, because the people running the party believe their future lies in a firmer anti-gay and anti-abortion and anti-tax stand, rather than invite new thinking. In the coming days, look for more big-name Republican defections, followed by more glee from Steele and Limbaugh as the moderates flee in droves.